Synopsis：
Give Me a Girl at AgeEighteenis a coming-of-age story set in Beijing in the late eighties and earlynineties. The narrator, Qiushui, is a silver-tongued teenage boy whose oneconstant goal throughout the tumult of puberty is to win the heart of ZhuShang, a guitar-strumming classmate who is the most beautiful girl he''s everseen.
内容简介：
《十八岁给我一个姑娘》作为冯唐"北京三部曲"《万物生长》的前传，讲述了十七岁的少年秋水逐渐长大成人，并爱上邻家姑娘朱裳的故事。全书在扑面而来的青春味道中，塑造了这一特殊阶段的生命萌动、反叛与思考；刻画出一个身处青春期男孩的内心，并通过男孩群像还原出20世纪80年代少年们眼中的北京。本书为英文翻译版。
Synopsis：
Give Me a Girl at Age Eighteen is a coming-of-age story set in Beijing in the late eighties and early nineties. The narrator, Qiushui, is a silver-tongued teenage boy whose one constant goal throughout the tumult of puberty is to win the heart of Zhu Shang, a guitar-strumming classmate who is the most beautiful girl he''s ever seen.
Give Me a Girl at Age Eighteen resembles J. D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye. Despite having different historical and political contexts, these two books complement each other as they draw upon the universal theme of sexual awakening and discuss the similar concepts of loss of childhood innocence and sheltered life, and the bitter introduction of the harsher yet more exciting world of adulthood.
Feng Tang author
Born in Beijing in 1971, FengTang is one of the most creative and controversial writers in China today. Apoet and doctor of medicine as well as a writer, he has had works translatedinto English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Korean.
Feng Tang author
Born in Beijing in 1971, Feng Tang is one of the most creative and controversial writers in China today. A poet and doctor of medicine as well as a writer, he has had works translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Korean. Feng Tangs Beijing Trilogy describes how young people in the old capital handle spiritual changes, physical changes, and the changing society around them. Having attracted a great number of readers, the trilogy achieved extremely high ratings in subsequent film and TV adaptations. Beyond his writing, Feng Tang also has a variety of business enterprises, including the application of business management concepts to medical care in order to improve the overall health and treatment available to ordinary people.
大卫海索姆（英译版译者）：英国80后，2014年任中国作协《路灯》杂志英文版执行编辑；翻译作品包括诸多中文短篇小说和散文，在译两部长篇：《18岁给我一个姑娘》（冯唐 著）、《石榴树上结樱桃》（李洱 著）；为一些重要英文文学杂志和网站，包括英国著名文学杂志《格兰塔》Granta、Asymptote、美国文学杂志Words Without Borders，撰写关于中国文学的评论。
Dave Haysom translator
l A resident of Beijing since 2007, Dave Haysom has been translating from Chinese since 2012; in 2014 he became joint managing editor of Pathlight, a quarterly journal of Chinese literature in translation.
l His translations have been published in various literary journals, and he has contributed essays on Chinese literature and popular culture to publications including Granta, Words Without Borders, and The Millions.
l His portfolio is online at www.spittingdog.net
封面与内容介绍：
內容試閱：
题记：
A work of pure fiction, unadulterated artifice. Written primarily to divert myself and secondarily to divert others.
For Y： at the time I never imagined a life could be cut so short.
后记：
Afterword
After a year of working nonstop, I managed to accumulate enough holiday time to take a four-week break so that I could finally finish my novel. The room was cosy and warm with the heating on, and I bought myself an expensive purple clay teapot, a Dalin design with a beautifully smooth lining, for the Tieguanyin ooling Id just been given by an old friend. I lined up a few books to try and inspire myself, like I might watch half a porn film to get me in the mood before doing the deed. There was a Xinhua Dictionary from the Commercial Press, Lolita, Salingers Nine Stories, Henry Millers Tropic of Capricorn, the New Account of the Tales of the World by Liu Yiqing, and Yu Huas Cries in the Rain. I might not be able to write something better than the dictionary, but I could surely at least outwrite Cries in the Rain.
This novel grew out of a novella entitled Zhu Shang, which I wrote a very long time ago. It was between twenty and thirty thousand characters in length, and when I read it again after a decade it struck me as very pretentious and very immature but it did accurately capture my feelings at the time, and it would serve as useful source material. Id originally submitted it to the first Yifan online writing competition, and back in those heady days before the burst of the dot-com bubble, I received a cheque for thirty U.S. dollars as one of the four third-place winners. I was living in Atlanta at the time, and those thirty dollars bought me ten pounds of mud crab and a whole load of pig kidneys which Americans dont eat. It kept me fed for a long time.
The Lu Xun Literary Institute made the following remarks at the time：
This exploration of the sexual psychology and rebellious inclinations of adolescence is an expansive work, both in terms of content and thematic concerns. It blends the settings of home, school, and society, and the specific details of its historical context lend the work considerable depth. The style is polished, and the language is humorous; the authors command of his craft is self-evident. He clearly has great potential.
The work tends towards hyperbole in its description of the dark side of society and the depravities of youth, and perhaps even goes so far as to glorify them. As such, it would be easy for this work to have a negative impact on young readers.
I was particularly proud of this last bit. I pictured myself as a wizard, capable of manipulating the feelings of others through my powers of sorcery. So I decided to keep the basic plot of this novella, and to embellish it with memories, flights of fancy, and fabrications in order to turn it into a novel. During this process, my publisher Mr. Xiong Can regularly reminded me that plot and narrative were crucial components of a bestselling novel, and I regularly reminded him that I was not writing a tale of teenage love. I wanted to prattle, to delight in the act of writing, to record the truth of my experience. The sales figures were of secondary importance, as far as I was concerned. Whenever there was a choice to be made between narrative coherence and truth, my duty to language and my own pleasure inevitably compelled me to choose the latter. I cited Zheng Banqiao in order to make my case more convincing： When Zheng Banqiao paints bamboo, his heart holds no design. Depth and density, length and thickness? The hand moves as it will, finding its own divine plan. In an effort to tempt Mr. Xiong Can I told him： You may as well just chalk this one off. My third novel though, thats the one thatll have a trite love story, with violence, and money, and sex, and Id be delighted if you would publish that one when the time comes.
Ive always hated eating by myself. While I was writing my novel, Id occasionally go out for a meal with one of the real-life prototypes for the characters in my book. Id always end up staring out at the winter beyond the window, taking a gulp of Yanjing beer, and sighing： Life is short and brutal. If youre going to try and do something with your life, youd better get it done quick.
Writing a novel is strenuous work, suitable for those between the ages of thirty and fifty. I came up with a motto to motivate myself： Read Encountering Sorrow, drink wine, write five thousand characters a day. After a few days of this, my head and back were killing me. I can hardly imagine what kind of state Id have been in if I were a few years older. When writing a novel you always reach a kind of crux, usually when youre about two-thirds done. You cant tell whats working; you feel like everything youve written so far is garbage. With this book I reached the crux early, when I was maybe a third of the way through. At which point I decided to grab my coat and go wandering round a bookshop. This was my greatest mistake. Theres a discount book store on the north side of Dengshikou Main Street, where they have brand new books heaped up like cabbages in winter, stacked from floor to ceiling. I bought a set of Wang Xiaobos four major works for just twenty kuai. And then all of a sudden I was dazed, thunderstruck, all my confidence ebbing away. How much garbage did they have in this place? How many of these books would still have readers in five hundred years time? How niubi would one have to be, having come to this realisation, how utterly convinced of ones own greatness, to actually bend over and write a whole book? And then to go so far as to print the thing, despoiling all the trees and flora that went into making those nice clean white pages? I thought of the Japanese genius Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, and when I doubted my own ability I opened my attic, looked out into space, and yelled： I am a genius! But it didnt prove all that helpful to him, seeing as how he overdosed on sleeping pills at the age of thirty-five.
For me personally, its not as though I am compelled to write. Its an entropic process. I can make twenty thousand for producing a consultancy report, just one A4 sheet of content spread across a PPT slide. When the peach blossom has fallen, only bare stems remain. The prettiest girl in school, who used to lead the calisthenics routines, is now trying to decide when to break the one-child policy and have a second baby, and whether its a good idea to start her own nursery school. Is it really worth indulging my sexual fantasies of her all over again, under the pretext of recording my life experiences?
But thats why I yearn for another lengthy break, so that I can finish writing all that l am compelled to dump onto the page. Im guessing my heart will feel completely vacant by the time Im finished. When I meet old lovers I will remain as calm and still as the water in an ancient, undisturbed by the faintest of ripples. Hence, to long for the day one no longer feels any impulse to write the day you proclaim that you have reached your limit, or been worn down by the everyday, and will never write another word is to long for ones own impotence.
Legend has it that after Jiang Yans poetic genius ran dry, he enjoyed a pleasant life of eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, smoking, duping, hoodwinking, deceiving, gulling, and thieving. I have no problem believing it.
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